No poem is worth anything unless it starts from a poetic trance, out of which you can be wakened by interruption as from a dream. In fact, it is the same thing.

Love is a universal migraine. A bright stain on the vision, Blotting out reason.

There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.

Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them.

The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.

Kill if you must, but never hate: Man is but grass and hate is blight, The sun will scorch you soon or late, Die wholesome then, since you must fight

I was last in Rome in AD 540 when it was full of Goths and their heavy horses. It has changed a great deal since then.

New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots Pull or stab or cut or burn, Love must ever yet return.

What we now call "finance" is, I hold, an intellectual perversion of what began as warm human love.

I was thinking, "So, I’m Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I'll be able to make people read my books now.

Just as meekness is in all our virtues, so is pride in all our sins. -Oct 1986

Shame Sucker! You suck my joy away!You suck my fun away!You suck my happiness away!Shame, you suck!

I'm not trying to run away from my fans at all. I want them to grow with me.

People reach an age... where somebody elses platform is no longer yours.

Inkstands and tea-cups are never as full as when one upsets them.

Most comedies are calculated. They tend to pander. They're not about anything important.

We have to tackle the plague of gun violence.

[Jason Hale] is an upstanding guy. Yeah, I like him. He's good.

It is an open secret that Jews do not work, but rather let others work for them.

Confidence is everything in this business.